Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 8).djvu/221

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FALLEN TIMBER
217

Fort Loramie was erected. The troops from there opened a new route across to Fort Greenville. Here, in the following year, the awed and broken Indian nations signed the Treaty of Fort Greenville which practically reaffirmed the previous Treaty of Fort Harmar.


Viewed as a whole, Wayne's campaign is most interesting from the standpoint of road-building. It was Wayne's advance which awed the savages, not the battle of Fallen Timber. The army crashing northward through the forests as though ever in the pursuit of a foe, the impregnable forts that arose here and there, the strongly fortified camps, the fleet and active scouting parties, the stern but even temper of Wayne's exhortations for peace, and at last, the fierce bayonet charge amid the prostrate trees, accomplished the very mission of the hour. That winding line of a road from the Ohio to Roche de Bout, and the five new forts that sprang up on it in 1793 and 1794, have left their impress strongly upon western history. The Indians never forgot the "Whirlwind," who was